Endwalker White Mage has Issues

[Rilifane]

Absolutely, and I was in no way implying that sage isn't a little over tuned. Actually that was part of my point, sage is over tuned when compared to the other healers, to just about the same degree that paladin was under tuned (pre 6.08) when compared to the other tanks. Even still the difference between it and whm (who has the lowest rdps) is only around 5%, which really isn't very much of a spread between an over tuned high and a low within a job category. Of course that is just damage and is just an example that "number" wise healer are relatively balanced, with the real issues being in design.

Being a few % behind other healers would be fine if WHM wasn't also the one healer that relies most on getting carried.
But it's lowest in dps and free healing and that's a problem. Even the kit that comes with a small dps loss (Lilies) is laughably weak. Compare that to SCH losing 100 dps to use a Sacred Soil, which is far superior to a measly Rapture. It's also the only healer that is completely screwed with MP economy. Anything goes sideways and WHM is the first to suffer immensely.

WHM is roughly equal with AST on most fights but since WHM has to get carried to put out these numbers, has horrible MP economy and a laughably small toolkit with long cooldowns, making it inflexible and AST can put out consistent dps while having full access to their nuclear healbomb toolkit without any dps loss whatsoever, has crazy MP economy, quick recovery and a steroid button for GCD heals for prog/ glorious chaos... why take a WHM? It doesn't matter that dps is on par.
I agree that being within a few % of each other is a really good balance but things like free healing, mitigation, MP economy, ability to recover are also things to consider and WHM just plain sucks in all of them.

But WHM is still the most played healers on all 3 of 5 fights (not on Phionix, what a surprise) and it's so S I M P L E, so it's obviously fine. No reason for the devs to take a look at it. All the abovementioned doesn't matter as long as there are enough people wanting an easy clear while being able to turn their brains off and leaving the responsibility to their co heal. Popular = fine.
For some reason they seem more focused on making healers equally popular instead of well-designed, engaging and decently balanced in all areas.

[Semirhage]

I understand where you are coming from, I think we are just coming at it from different angels. Personally, whm's competitiveness is not a big deal to me, it would be neat if it was the best healer but, to me, that's all it would be, neat. Whm isn't even that far behind the other healers atm dps wise, despite having the lowest "rdps," based on fflogs data its less than 5% behind sage (the highest dps). To me whm being simple but engaging and whm being competitive are independent things. I actually do think that the more complex healers should have a little bit more dps and utility for the extra effort that is put in, that makes sense to me. My problem is the lack of care with whm, even in a vacuum whm feels bad right now and it doesn't need to, because (again to me) it doesn't need to be the best to be a well designed job.

That's the thing though, WHM's theoretical competitiveness is all it has left once the mandatory simplicity filter gets applied. It's got the worst oGCDs. Worst MP economy. Worst total damage. Where other healers have utility to fall back on, WHM just has empty pockets because LOL SIMPL means you can't have any of that forbidden flexibility.

The DPS and Tank role, tuning issues aside, have this figured out: if personal damage is all you bring to the table, you get it as your niche. Black Mage outdamages the others because it doesn't have a toolkit of party mitigation, buffs, or a raise. Dark Knight (RIP, flaming trash to play though it may be) doesn't have butt wings or Cover or Shake It Off or Clemency, so it gets damage as its "niche".

Healers take this paradigm and flip it. The more utility and buffs you have, the more powerful your damage gets to be. So you have the baby healer that's designed to play like ass, with weaker heals, weaker damage, and a whole mess of hideous design problems. They make it "the GCD healer", and then refuse to actually reward GCD healing, so you're just left with a class that has to play worse with greater losses than its competition for ~☆reasons☆~. Make it the "personal damage" healer except lol whoops, the other "personal damage" healer craps all over your personal damage *and* has the oGCD kit to actually support that design.

All the healers casting one spell over and over again is horrible, garbage game design, but at LEAST the other three have a glimmer of hope to get Square to figure this out and fix them in the distant future. Crapass no-utility worse damage snoozefest Glarespam is for God knows what reason considered "good" design by a sizable portion of the healer community, so this wretched rathole corner of gleeful mandatory mediocrity WHM is designed into is never going away.

[RinaShinomiya]

Semir, i always love reading your posts. <3
That's all i wanted to say.

[Ryme]

WHM is roughly equal with AST on most fights but since WHM has to get carried to put out these numbers, has horrible MP economy and a laughably small toolkit with long cooldowns, making it inflexible and AST can put out consistent dps while having full access to their nuclear healbomb toolkit without any dps loss whatsoever, has crazy MP economy, quick recovery and a steroid button for GCD heals for prog/ glorious chaos... why take a WHM? It doesn't matter that dps is on par.

You're absolutely right, all the points you bring up are 100% true. I have never intended to give the impression that I thought whm is in a good spot right now, quite the opposite. I have spent many posts in this thread proposing and discussing ways that whm could potentially be improved.

That's the thing though, WHM's theoretical competitiveness is all it has left once the mandatory simplicity filter gets applied.

I think you are conflating simplicity with poor design. Without changing anything about the other healers or anything else about whm glare's potency could be buffed to 1000, misery 4000, and medica 2 could be changed to be instant cast, have no cooldown, be totally free and restore 20000 total potency, whm would instantly be the best healer in the game by a mile and still be just as simple and just as poorly designed. Simplicity, good design and competitiveness are independent variables.

[Semirhage]

I think you are conflating simplicity with poor design. Without changing anything about the other healers or anything else about whm glare's potency could be buffed to 1000, misery 4000, and medica 2 could be changed to be instant cast, have no cooldown, be totally free and restore 20000 total potency, whm would instantly be the best healer in the game by a mile and still be just as simple and just as poorly designed. Simplicity, good design and competitiveness are independent variables.

Those variables should be independent, but they aren't. WHM is the worst healer because it's simple (and also badly designed). This has gone back and forth in a circular argument on the Healer forums since Heavensward. WHM is the simplest -> easiest to play -> should be weaker because it's easier to play -> can't have utility because having no utility is its identity -> so it's simple and weak and uncompetitive -> but what do you expect it has to be simple because that's its identity.

You're right that it could have its numbers buffed and be competitive, and still be unfun. One of the things that gets rough when it comes to talking about the healer role (and WHM in particular) is that the issues with their design are just so numerous that it's impossible to cover them all in one conversation. WHM isn't fun to play and it's not competitive and it has no identity, and these have been more or less true for three expansions now. I'm convinced that the decision to keep it uncompetitive is directly tied to its simplicity (and popularity). When you take stock of just the sheer number of things the other healers can do that WHM just...can't, it's ridiculous. Want to shield the party? Sucks to be you. Offer a damage boost? Whoops can't do it. Movement skill? Nah you don't get one. Oh, is there anything you can do that the other healers can't? Mmmmm, not really. Free raise? Oh wait the other three just have excellent MP recovery and they aren't as bothered. As a WHM, you just have a bunch of artificial problems to work around because your class is gimped and just can't do a bunch of stuff, so you get carried by your cohealer.

WHM's "identity" used to be the "pure raw healer". We told Square over and over again that this doesn't constitute an identity, because either your higher output is required (and therefore your class is mandatory), or it's not, and it's overhealing. Well it looks like at some point they tacitly acknowledged this and just buffed everyone else's healing to be equivalent (and in many cases better). So now WHM's identity is....uh...it's the one you could train a piece of broccoli to play. Wow, what an identity, sure inspires there. And as long as that remains the central rule around which the job -must- be designed, it's going to be designed like crap.

Semir, i always love reading your posts. <3
That's all i wanted to say.

I don't always agree with the visceralness of their posts, but it sure gets a laugh out of me every time. And I can't fault them for their rage. I feel it too, like watching someone do something wrong and continue to make the same mistake over and over. At some point, you just wish you could reach through the screen and fix it yourself.

Kisses.

[Ryme]

One of the things that gets rough when it comes to talking about the healer role (and WHM in particular) is that the issues with their design are just so numerous that it's impossible to cover them all in one conversation.

Well, that is generally why I started this thread lol. But regarding everything else you brought up, I think I have a reasonable grasp of where you're coming from now, even if I don't agree with everything you said, based on the way you worded it. I would be interested to hear what you think of the mini rework I proposed earlier in the thread. The goal of which was to address the biggest issues whm is facing without adding brand new abilities or fundamentally altering any of the jobs current systems. I would also obviously be interested in any other thoughts people have in regards to it or how they might go about changing the job themselves.

[QooEr]

whm doesnt even need That much to make it competitive again. or at the very least not a liability anyway.

Making lilies dps neutral, giving assize a charge, and making thin air work on 2-3 spells are three very simple changes that would fix a lot of whms problems.

i wouldn't say its enough to make it Good, but it would solve all its mp issues and it would actually have lossless healing so the cohealer wouldnt need to carry all the healing anymore.

[Semirhage]

Well, that is generally why I started this thread lol. But regarding everything else you brought up, I think I have a reasonable grasp of where you're coming from now, even if I don't agree with everything you said, based on the way you worded it. I would be interested to hear what you think of the mini rework I proposed earlier in the thread. The goal of which was to address the biggest issues whm is facing without adding brand new abilities or fundamentally altering any of the jobs current systems. I would also obviously be interested in any other thoughts people have in regards to it or how they might go about changing the job themselves.

I think those fixes would help with a lot of the unnecessarily frustrating parts of WHM's kit that make WHM the weakest healer in the role, but fixing healer engagement as a whole is a much larger undertaking. If it makes sense, I'd almost rather those changes didn't get implemented, because it'd be easy for Square to just rebalance the math and leave the job still unrewarding and unfun to play, but wash their hands of it because it's "fixed". I'm approaching from a jaded vet healer perspective where I'm sick of the entire design. I get how infuriating it is that a lot of the frankly stupid design decisions Square makes have ridiculous clunk that's pretty trivial to avoid with just some number tweaks, and at the same time I wish they'd put some actual care and consideration into designing healers instead of just removing the "weak" part from "unfun *and* weak".

Though I'm complaining primarily about balance within the role, the reason I'm complaining about it is because I think actually designing the healers to be fun to play will also fix that imbalance as a side-effect. WHM is trapped as worst-in-role because its kit is just so incomplete. It's not a particularly outstanding burst healer, because the other healers do it better. It's not a strong damaging healer, because the other healers either have higher potencies (Sage) or have followed the design direction that actually complements this game's combat system, i.e. moving the healing power into oGCDs, which not only allows you to heal largely for free, but also frees up even more time to deal damage, further widening the gap between the healers.

WHM's core design is just so outdated. The absurd number of oGCDs the other healers bring, the fact that a lot of the other healers' spells and abilities are just straight superior to anything WHM has to offer, the list is just staggering. I'm looking at YOU, Tetra vs Essential Dignity. Why is Aquaveil just straight up worse than Exaltation? How about Zoe + Pneuma vs Temperance (or Plenary) and Cure 3? Wider radius, deals damage, higher potency, heals the tank extra? So much for the "pure burst healer" when Sage is just superior. Heck...Pneuma is a GCD heal that's on a long cooldown and heals for a large amount in an AOE...but is also not a DPS loss. Cool, so glad Sage can just casually accomplish in one ability what WHM spends its entire job gauge farting around with and doesn't even manage -that- much. Why the hell is every single thing in WHM's kit impressive on paper, except then you can just point at an equivalent ability in half the role that's just hilariously better for no reason?

Even if WHM's numbers made it competitive, it brings nothing unique to the table and never has. Not since Heavensward. It doesn't stand out in any way.

[ty_taurus]

Semir, i always love reading your posts. <3
That's all i wanted to say.

I don't always agree with the visceralness of their posts, but it sure gets a laugh out of me every time. And I can't fault them for their rage. I feel it too, like watching someone do something wrong and continue to make the same mistake over and over. At some point, you just wish you could reach through the screen and fix it yourself.

[RobynDaBank]

I found a JP Hippokampos log with a solo WHM healer who seems to have output some nice damage. https://www.fflogs.com/reports/JqBLX...pe=damage-done (hope I don't get in trouble for this, lol).